Posted on 01/26/2016 3:56:51 AM PST by kristinn
With less than a week until the Iowa caucuses, Donald Trump is facing an 11th-hour barrage of negative advertising - with a new anti-Trump group spending more than $1 million in a last-ditch effort to defeat him.
Our Principles PAC, a newly formed super PAC set up by a former top aide to Mitt Romney, is set to begin airing a TV ad in Iowa that calls into question his devotion to conservative positions - and asks Iowa voters bluntly, "How much do we really know about Donald Trump?"
The ad, which invokes Trump's past statements on hot-button issues like abortion and health care, marks one of the most aggressive efforts yet to take down the billionaire businessman, who leads most state and national polls and is in a competitive battle with Ted Cruz in Iowa.
Katie Packer, who served as Romney's deputy campaign manager in the 2012 election and who now heads Our Principles PAC, declined to give an exact figure for how much the anti-Trump group was spending to air the commercial, though a source familiar with the TV buy said it was in the "seven-figure" range.
Trump is also confronting an onslaught of attacks from Ted Cruz's campaign and two allied super PACs - all of which on Monday released commercials that, like Packer's, highlights the real estate mogul's past liberal positions. One, from the pro-Cruz super PAC Stand for Truth, uses footage from a 1999 interview in which Trump says that he is "pro-choice in every respect."
The late attacks come just days before the first votes of the primary are cast - and come at a time when some of Trump's rivals are openly wondering whether Iowa represents their last chance to stop him.
"If Donald wins Iowa, he right now has a substantial lead in New Hampshire, if he went on to win New Hampshire as well, there is a very good chance he could be unstoppable and be our nominee," Cruz told a gathering of Iowa pastors on Monday.
"If he wins Iowa the dominoes begin to fall," said Matt Dowd, who served as chief strategist on George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign. "It will be very hard to stop him at that point. He has all the momentum. And keep in mind no GOP candidate has lost the nomination who has been in Trump's position at this point."
SNIP
Didn't The Donald say that Cruz has a "rough temperament" and can't get along with anyone, because he called McConnell a liar on the floor of the Senate? Didn't Trump say that he would be "a little bit establishment," because he could work with people like McConnell?
So, which is it - is Cruz too extreme to work with establishment types like McConnell? Or is Cruz part of the establishment himself?
In Iowa, that would mean he'd have to say he'd get rid of the ethanol mandate, stop the subsidies, and shut down the EPA. That might get Iowa to bail on him, but I'd think it was a plus.
I know enough about the rest of my fellow sinners in this state to figure out that in a general, Ted Cruz isn't going to get jack squat from fed-up Dems and Indies, and if this is the hill that Steve Deace, Bob Vander Plaats and the usual cluster of the sainted demands everyone else to politically die on, at least it will be the last fight they'll ever have a chance to pick.
Mr. niteowl77
I have absolutely zero interest in getting into a fight with any freeper. Go read the article, or don’t. Your call.
Last time this was tried, no change in Trump and Bush went down. People tune out. Ad agency employees will vote for Bush because he keeps them employed, but few others will.
Is this “Super Pac” that is supporting “Formerly Surging Ted” for or against amnesty? Is it for or against gay marriage? Is it for or against the Iran bribe deal?
With “Formerly Surging Ted” you don’t know until you look because he takes money from so many sides of the same issues.
I am a bit surprised that someone from the McConnell camp would support either Trump or Cruz.
I figure they would be more pro Rubio than Cruz (or Trump).
Well, why I appreciate someone telling the truth about Trump's treatment of the pre-born as trash to be tossed out...-- pre-borns who actually are his potential hotel guests...and...
...had could have been future gambling constituents had Trump not squandered over a $1 billion of both his & lot of other people's $...losing all four of his properties in Atlantic City as part of the gambling industry...Trump Is Gone From Atlantic City But Not Forgotten...
...Romney himself was all over the board on abortion.
(Guess it takes one crooked -- & is not walking any straight path -- politician to know one)
“Trump himself is going to have to one eighty on what heâs been saying before a lot if people bail on him.”
Exactly right. The only thing Trump could do to lose my vote at this point is go soft.
People like that he’s aggressive. He says what they wish their reps had been saying since 0 took office.
Negative ads!!!
Seems the more they lob at him the more people turn to him !
And then there is FOX! ME-GYN will no doubt try something.
Yet Trump donated to Mitch in his election against the conservative revin and McConnell has been attacking Cruz.
Thin gruel you are selling there.
I have absolutely zero interest in getting into a fight with any freeper. Go read the article, or donât. Your call.
Oh they will be PRI PRO PRO Rubio as soon as they get CRUZ out of their way.
The pattern has been if a candidate attacks Trump his numbers go down What better way to assure he will have falling numbers than to attack Trump in your closest opponents name?
Particularly using a LARGE PAC.
All Trump has to do is say something controversial again and all eyes and 24/7 MSM coverage of him to overshadow his opponents again:-)
Now there ya go.
Jebster's down in Houston raking in some more bucks instead of campaigning in Iowa or NH, and everyone around here wondering what the GOPe are gonna do to prop up the Jebster or someone like him, and which GOPe loser's name pops up...
I wish I had your wisdom.
Politics is a risky business – a deliberate business – with very specific decisions; and as a direct consequence when you cross a particular line in opposition you point yourself in a very specific direction. Candidate Cruz has also now affirmed himself as a rigid ideologue.
At 6:30pm today, as a direct result of an official campaign position and not one stemming from a Super-PAC, candidate Ted Cruz officially put himself onto a singular path which leads to either:
A) his own victory, or B) a later endorsement of Jeb Bush/Marco Rubio.
Our new TV ad starts airing statewide in Iowa tomorrow... #IACaucus https://t.co/ntbfiNKtZx
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) January 25, 2016
When a campaign, and again to repeat this is NOT a pac, attacks a primary opponent in this manner, there is no latter position to fall back upon (change course) to deliver an endorsement of the candidate you are attacking.
This ad does not provide any possibility of candidate Cruz reversing course and endorsing the same candidate being targeted. Bridge burned, no way to reverse. It never happens.
Senator Ted Cruz has painted himself into a corner. If this attack doesn’t work, and if Cruzdoesn’t win Iowa, he only leaves himself one option.
It is doubtful there is a more apropos example of why Ted Cruz is so ineffective as a Senator; and additionally, this approach solidifies everything Professor Alan Derschowitz outlined as the inherent personal character flaw within his former student, Ted Cruz, as a rigid ideologue.
[…] He made a lasting impression as someone both arrogant and pretentious, as well as someone unwilling to yield or compromise. (link)
This is also exactly the same behavior Senator Ted Cruz exhibited in October through December 2013, and then forward into 2014 when Cruz and Rand Paul aligned with Mitch McConnell…. That alliance ended with the NRSC attacking Mississippi Senate Candidate Chris McDaniel… Cruz claiming he was hoodwinked by the Senate organization he gave $250k and was Vice-Chairman, but he’s the smartest man in the Senate?
Later, during the debate on Fast Track Trade Authority, again Cruz claims he was hoodwinked…. but he’s the smartest man in the Senate? More bridges burned…. leaves Cruz the loneliest, and least effective, man in Washington DC.
McConnel will help Cruz to try and damage Trump praying, if McConnell believes in a God other than himself, that it will give a GOPe Candidate a chance to rise. If that happens then the guns will turn on Cruz. In this case he will view it as the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Well since Romney is uber establishment it should tell us something about how the establishment feels about the Donald. I think it can be summed up as “afraid”. Very afraid.
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